Fig. 1

Changes in parasitemia and morphology of in vitro cultured B. gibsoni (Wuhan isolate). A Changes in parasitemia of in vitro cultured B. gibsoni (Wuhan isolate) within 3 days after splitting. B Morphological changes in B. gibsoni (Wuhan isolate) after in vitro adaptation. (1–3) The small dot-form, filamentous, and dyad parasites of in vivo environment. (4–7) Early rings, mature rings, filamentous and multiple parasites of in vitro environment. (8–13) Young dyad, mature dyad, young tetrads, mature tetrads, young octoploid, mature octoploid parasites of in vitro environment. (14, 15) Schizont and merozoites egressing from erythrocytes. Bars, 5 μm. C The proportion of different forms of parasites from in vivo and in vitro environments containing 10% B. gibsoni-infected erythrocytes. The statistical analysis: ****P < 0.0001, ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01, *P < 0.05, ns: not significant (multiple Student’s t-tests). The error bars represent mean ± standard deviation (SD) for three biological replicates